Home, home, home

...and here is where I'm going to stay, at least for the forseeable future. Kevin's going to be keeping an eye on my place in Tucson, until June at least, and the rent runs out in July...we'll see if I decide to go back. I'm almost considering transfering to NAU so I can be near my family, no matter if the art program isn't as good up here.
I noticed that my last post was my 100th post. How lovely, I've done 100 pages on the worst semester of my life. At least the 100th post was sort of happy.

I left Tucson at 5 in the morning, that was how badly I wanted to get up here. I barely even packed, just threw all my clothes into garbage bags and grabbed my laptop and sketchbook and whatever books I had lying around. And my bat. I dropped the key off at Kevin's place (woke him up, sorry Kevin) and was gone by 5:30.

Traffic was light and I managed to get to Flagstaff by early afternoon, before Mom and Ted were off work, so I went straight to the hospital. Aunt Caroline was there, of course. She has to go back to work next week, because she's almost out of paid vacation. She had a lot of vacation days. She was planning on going on a trip to New York with Andrew this summer.

When I saw him on that bed, I started sobbing. He looked so little. Andrew's this tall, gangly kid with a huge mop of curly black hair and they cut all his hair off, shaved it down to stubble, and he's so pale under that California tan...he doesn't look like himself anymore. He looks sick. And that's scary, to see my cousin look so sick, with those big purple bruises around his eyes...he's always been healthy, strong, active. He dances to shitty ska music all the time. He can't be lying in this white room with all these beeping machines around him, looking like...well, he looked like Daniel did, in the end. And that scares me most of all.

Aunt Caroline hugged me and we sat there and cried and held his hands and talked to him. He didn't wake up, of course. That's not how it works in real life. The doctors say if he doesn't come out of it within a month, his chances are slim. And Aunt Caroline doesn't know if she can pay for him to stay on life support. Which is...God, I don't even want to think about it.

Ted made french toast for dinner tonight, which he always does to cheer me up. He has a special way of making it that no one can come close to. Ted is wasted as a principal, he should have been a cook. We sat around the dinner table and it felt so empty, and outside was so cloudy and cold. Usually when I'm home it's all jokes and plans and hanging out on the couch watching basketball, but even though there's a Suns game on tonight and Ted always wants to watch them play the Spurs, the tv stayed off and we just sat around talking for hours.
But even if it's weird at home, I'd still rather be here than anywhere else. I feel safe here, and I'm close to Andrew. And that's all I can be.

One more thing- I'm retiring the (X) as a tag. Jill said it marked the Slender Man's territory, and I don't want it on anything of mine.